


Six Idiots

by Plinycapybara



Category: Dead Romans Society (Webcomic), Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi
Genre: Anime, Gen, Literature, Manga, THIS IS COMPLETE SHIT, Writing, emerald - Freeform, hippocrates, publishing, vergil fading again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 04:31:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5443424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plinycapybara/pseuds/Plinycapybara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven hundred years after the incident between Dante and Vergil involving the Divine Comedy, the quiet Mantuan seems to be fading away again. In finding the people responsible, they gain new insight into the changing nature of the living world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Idiots

A fic for the Dead Romans Society, a webcomic about dead, eccentric Romans by this beautiful person, chieldon. 

Summary: Seven hundred years after the incident between Dante and Vergil involving the Divine Comedy, the quiet Mantuan seems to be fading away again. In finding the people responsible, they gain new insight into the changing nature of the living world. 

“Catallus, I’ve seen you screw up, but this is a new low for you.” Horace shook his head as he peered at the pile of six bodies. They were half-awake, had darkened circles under their eyes, and some with thin paper masks over their mouths. “You kidnapped their slaves. The names we were looking for were Elizabeth Baker, Hanna Berg, Takano Masamune, Daigo Aiba, Chiho Fujihara and Ritsu Onodera.” 

“I’ll go grab Hippocrates. I mean, even if they’re just the slaves of these people, they must have some information that might help Vergil, right?” Catallus smiled. 

“I guess.” 

—

“Severe dehyrdation, lack of nutrients, four of them have contracted the common cold, and a lack of sleep. The lack of sleep and liquid has definitely not helped their recovery from the cold. But give them lots of water and sleep, some fruit as well, and they’ll be fine.” Hippocrates smiled as he laid the bodies down to sleep. “Ah, look these poor things, I feel so terrible.” 

“Get your finger off of me–I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” A sharp voice came from the mouth of black-framed glasses-wearing, tall man. Dante, Vergil, Cicero, Horace and Catallus jumped. The man got up and brushed himself off. He fixed his glasses. “Your concern is appreciated, but I’m afraid I don’t need it. I need to head back to my office. The next issue of Emerald is due to go to the cheap idiots at the printers in a week and we’re still editing parts of one of certain person’s artist’s storyboard.” He shot a glare at the red-brown haired man that blinked his eyes for the first time. “Takano…where…am I? Is that…the stafffor the B-Girlmanga? Why are they here? Why is everything is empty? Takano, I-” 

“Onodera, you’re awake. Wake up the staff. We’ll have a makeshift meeting with them here.” Takano ordered. 

“Um, I’m afraid that’ll have to wait, sir, they’re in critical condition, if they don’t get some sleep and water their cold could develop into–” Hippocrates tried to intervene. 

“The publishing industry waits for no one.” Takano shook his head. 

“…The what?” Hippocrates asked. 

“The what?” the five poets on the couch tilted their heads. 

“You’ve never heard of the publishing industry?” Takano asked. Their blank stares answered the glasses-wearing man’s question. “Very well–may I ask where I am, why I’m here, and who you people are? It’s obvious you know who I am because why else would you drag me here.” 

“Well, you’re a sharp one, I’ll give you that.” Cicero nodded. “This is the Dead Roman’s Society…we’re Romans and we’re dead. That’s basically it.” 

“And why am I, the chief editor of Emerald, a monthly Shoujo manga magazine, here?” Tanako asked. “You dragged the staff of one of our featured mangas B-Girl down here and their assigned editor with them, so I’m assuming it has to do something with that?” 

“Correct again,” Cicero nodded. “Your…work…did you call it ma-man…magna?” 

“Manga. They’re comics. Illustrated stories,” Tanako answered. 

“Sure,” Cicero sighed. “Your work has caused our dear Vergil to fade.” 

“Fade?” Tanako blinked. 

“Something within him has changed, or his memory has been tarnished and now he’s beginning to slowly disappear. It’s happened to him before, you can ask Dante about it,” Cicero turned to the Floretine. 

“I see.” Tanako nodded. “You’d be better off talking to Lizzie, she was the one who originally thought up the premise of the manga.” 

—

While five of the captives rested, Vergil went off to his secret spot. Catallus, Dante and Lucretius watched patiently from afar. They flipped through the comic given to them by Takano.

“Illustrated stories with copies of them made in the thousands, and the fact that it’s something common that happens everyday…,” Dante peered at it. “So many people can read, women as a major market demographic…,” 

“It’s crazy to think about.” Catallus ran his fingers across the back cover where the summary of the volume was written. 

When twenty-four-year-old Emi Arakawa graduates from college and moves back to her parents’ house to care for her elderly grandmother, she finds that her room has been rented out to an unexpected occupant in order to pay for some hefty hospital bills–none other than Publius Vergil Maro, who is back from the dead, and wanting to make the most of the time he has to experience the modern world! 

Lucretius blinked. “Their eyes…they’re so big…why…?” 

“I dunno,” Catallus smiled. 

“Dante, is that you? I’d recognize that red robe of yours anywhere. Catallus? Lucretius?” Vergil asked. “Please leave me alone. I don’t want to look at it. I don’t want to know what I look like now.”

“Master, just because you might look different, that doesn’t mean your spirit isn’t the same, right?” Dante smiled. Vergil’s eyes widened. He looked back at the Florentine poet. 

“… I suppose,” 

—

Elizabeth sat with her head tilted towards the floor. 

“Explain yourself,” Cicero demanded. 

“When my best friend Hannah graduated from college and went to teach English in Japan, I visited her every six months for a period of a ten days. I wanted to keep in touch and visit her. Then I got a job working for a partner publishing house ofEmerald’s parent company that was located in New York, which is a large city. I had to make even more trips to Japan because of that. I moved in with Hannah and her two friends that she made while teaching, Diago and Chiho, a few years into my job. We began to dive into some of the major divisions between Western and Eastern cultures that don’t usually come to light in a formal class. We live in an age where people in Britian or France do business with people in China or India every second of the day. People move across the world for business, East to West, West to East. These conflicting ideas made for some hilarious moments. A lot of people who move across the world deal with this. Japan has a huge issue with xenophobia. So I wanted to use Vergil, who’s a major symbol of Western culture, to represent some of the awkwardness that is experienced by the people who work and live with Westerns, and from the viewpoint of the Westerner who’s trying his best not to offend the people he’s trying to impress. I-I didn’t mean to degrade your friend or to make him sick. All I wanted to do was to use an art form to display everyday awkward situations from both points of view.” Elizabeth then coughed and swallowed some mucus. 

“I see. So your intentions were well-meaning,” Cicero sighed. “I think your mistake was making Vergil into a symbol of Western culture. Dante told us that he’s one of the most famous Latin poets, so to an extent, that is true. However, he’s more than a symbol. He’s a person.”

“I know. I read his biography.” 

“Dante did as well,”

“…I…just…I have nothing.” Elizabeth curled up into a ball. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Dante did have pride in his work, though. Do you?” 

“I do. I’m happy that it’s getting an anime adaptation and that it’s become so popular.” Elizabeth answered. 

“That’s not what I’m talking about–if you were to take all of that. Just by itself, do you have pride in it?” 

“I’m not the only person who worked hard on it, though. I can’t take full credit for it.” 

“You’re avoiding my question.” 

“I do.” 

“Really?” 

“Y-Yes.” 

“If I were to say that it sucked, what would you say?” 

Elizabeth looked up for a moment. “I guess that’s just your opinion, there’s nothing I can do to change that. Just go read something else, there’s a lot of things out there. You’ll find something that you like, I’m sure. Not everyone likes the same stuff,” 

“You’re a liar.” 

“Huh?” 

“You don’t have a lick of pride in what you’ve made. Why not?” 

“I-I guess, I’m just not a proud person. I don’t like to brag.”

“Modesty is indeed a virtue.” Cicero reclined. “You should be able to defend your position, though. Is your work important to you?” 

“I work day and night on it–of course it is! I pour my heart out into it! I tear up every time a fan sends in a letter or e-mail!” Elizabeth answered. 

“Then defend yourself.” Cicero replied. 

“Defend myself?” Elizabeth asked. 

“Tell me why your…comic, magma, magno–”

“Manga.” Elizabeth corrected. 

“Whatever–doesn’t suck. You just said you worked hard on it. Why hasn’t your blood, sweat and tears not gone to waste?” Cicero asked. 

Elizabeth paused to collect herself. “Well, it…um…it has won several awards. It’s ran for three years in the award-winning Emerald magazine. The first volume sold over four hundred thousand copies, making it on the top 100 best-selling volumes of manga in 2015. It’s being made into an anime that’s going to be aired in spring of 2017 by the amazing Kyoto Animation that worked on the critically-acclaimed Clannad.” 

“You said nothing that someone else couldn’t have said for you. Why do you think it doesn’t suck? Why should I believe you?” Cicero insisted. 

“Its just a heartfelt story about an old Western man and a young Eastern girl trying to make the most of things. It’s pretty universal and simple that a lot of people from various cultures can hopefully relate to,” 

“Now we’re onto to something.” Cicero nodded.


End file.
